


not the same as repair

by trite



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29931426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trite/pseuds/trite
Summary: The time you spend getting to know a person who will later be reintroduced as a stranger, Poe thinks.
Relationships: Zorii Bliss/Poe Dameron
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	not the same as repair

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 50th fic in this fandom! I think it’s fitting that it’s Poe/Zorii and Hurt/Comfort. Two things I never thought I’d be writing however many months ago I got into this fandom. 
> 
> I took many, many liberties with Zorii’s ship (I know it’s canonically a Y-Wing) because it didn’t fit I wanted to write. Enjoy!

Poe enjoys the celebration for a couple of hours but the heavily implied but unvoiced _what’s next?_ weights on him. He’s glad no one actually voices it.

He makes his way to the edges of the camp, away from the spotlight. Literally, in a way, since the lanterns clustering around the celebration are missing from this area. It’s dark in here, the air cold against his skin, quiet except for the faint sounds of the trees, their leaves crashing together again and again.

A sound goes off in the distance and he briefly, very briefly mistakes it for an explosion. Fireworks, that makes more sense.

“When was the last time you changed that?” Zorii asks, pointing to his arm.

It takes him a few seconds to process the words and then to remember how to react. Time keeps speeding up and slowing down and it’s fucking up his reactions.

When he turns, she’s frowning at him and he remembers, belatedly, to grin. “Sometime before we won the war.” He keeps trying the wording on for size. It sounds awkward and forced. Not impossible and unrealistic but like it shouldn’t be a full sentence. It should be prefaced by something, or accompanied with a ‘but’ at the end. Despite what Finn told him, he doesn’t feel like this is permanent.

She comes and sits down next to him, close enough that no one could fit between them but far apart enough that no part of them comes in direct contact. “You’ve learned evasiveness. Good for you. What else have I missed in the past—” She pauses, tilts her head, and squints a little. All vaguely recognizable but ultimately unfamiliar mannerisms.

The time you spend getting to know a person who will later be reintroduced as a stranger, Poe thinks. “Seventeen years.”

“A lifetime. We should catch up sometime.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” he asks.

“I meant sometime after you change your bandages.”

“It’s a graze,” he says unconcerned. He tries to shrug but it makes his arm hurt.

She doesn’t roll her eyes, but he can tell it’s a close thing. “How did you get your graze?”

He grins, hoping he’s conveying dashing and heroic properly. “I got shot.”

She looks at him unimpressed but the corner of her mouth tilts up; only a little but it’s there. “People kept asking me how I knew the general. Took me a bit to realize they meant you.”

He swallows and looks away. “Yeah, that kind of fell on my lap.”

After a long pause, she asks, “isn’t it bad for morale if you die from a graze?”

“I don’t know about morale but it’d be a pretty embarrassing way to go.”

“How did you get it? Maybe we can give it a heroic spin. You know, if you die.”

“We visited a lovely star destroyer and this was the way we were greeted. No manners on those guys.”

“Except on the one you brought back.” Her words are curious, without accusation.

“You’ve had the pleasure, then.”

“Pleasure is a stretch.”

He smiles, a real one this time, unplanned. “Yeah, he was lovely enough to save my life so I felt like I owed him.”

When she smiles back it’s a little disarming. “Lovely? That’s an interesting choice of words. I respect it but it’s not what I would say.”

“What is everyone else saying?” Poe needs at least a few hours before he feels up to defending his choices. Finn was there and has his back. He doesn’t have to do it alone.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I think most people aren’t thinking about— I mean, I could ask,” she says with a frown.

He pictures Zorii asking people to rate his leadership skills and feels something tight around his ribs. “I’m sure everyone will make their positions known soon enough.”

She considers him for a moment before casually saying, “I was serious about your bandages. I’m sure you’re going to tell me you can pilot with one arm and blindfolded but maybe you don’t have to try it?”

“You’re the only one who’s talking about blindfolding me here.”

“Don’t get cute, Poe Dameron. You’re not sixteen anymore.”

“You didn’t let me get cute when I was sixteen either.” He pauses. “The _Tantive IV_ is gone. Leia’s ship. I—” He swallows and tries to get to the point. “We’re using a tent as a makeshift infirmary because we no longer have a medbay. It’s crowded in there.”

He stopped there in between all the celebrating. Despite the injuries, the wounds — physical and beyond — people had looked happy and relieved. He tried to get to a similar place but only found mimicry within his reach.

“We don’t have to go there. I have a medkit on my ship.” She stands up, abruptly and confidently. “Let’s go, _general_.”

Poe watches her walk away, not pausing to see if he’ll follow, turning right as she reaches the place where light from the lanterns starts to fall. She beckons him with a movement of her head and he follows.

“Welcome to the _Comeuppance_ ,” Zorii says, pointing to a ship parked between two freighters on their provisional landing bay.

“The what?”

“The _Comeuppance_.” There’s a challenge to her words and in her eyes.

“You named her. I like it. It’s a very _you_ name.” It reminds him of the Zorii he used to know, but most importantly it reminds him that he would like to know this Zorii he’s just meeting.

It’s a little small and cramped inside, though he’s tempted to attribute the clumsy way they move around each other to sheer exhaustion. He’s never been awkward inside a cockpit.

“Let’s see that graze, then. I hope we can make do with bacta and bandages because I don’t have a lot of supplies here,” she says, businesslike.

He watches her hands open the medkit, the frown that crosses her features as she looks for what she needs, the careful way she sets the bacta tube, wipes, and finally a small, sealed bag containing gauze.

He’s still staring when she turns to him. “Do you need help or are you just being squeamish?”

He shakes himself. He’s groggy, crashing from the activities of the past twenty hours. “I got it.”

She’s quick and efficient as she wipes around the blaster burn. She turns his arm, pulls him closer, her fingertips digging into his skin. She’s careful with the wound but not tender. He watches as she applies bacta, her movements precise.

“Don’t move your arm,” she says as she releases him and reaches for the bandage. “Stay still.”

“Thank you,” he says after, when she jokingly declares him fit for duty. The joke doesn’t land but he feels a little bad for not laughing. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Who else would take care of your harmless scratch?” She leans carefully against the dash but her body doesn’t touch the controls. She looks to her left, outside the viewport, and he follows her gaze.

The moonlight only filters through the leaves and branches of the tall trees, but it’s bright enough that it reaches and perfectly illuminates them.

“Will you stay?” he asks. He heard people making plans to leave, go back to their homeworlds, help rebuild them now that they’re no longer under occupation, return to their families, leave the fight where it belongs. Carry on.

Without looking at him, she says, “I have nowhere to go back to.”

It’s not an answer but maybe he was imprecise.

“You can stay. That’s what I meant. For as long as you— want,” he finishes, wondering if she still takes poorly to people telling her what she might need.

“I don’t think you’re setting a good example if you start your new galaxy by harboring criminals.”

“That’s not—” he starts but she turns to look at him sharply, her green eyes fixed on him.

“It’s all I know.”

“It’s all you’ve lived so far.”

“Yes, for thirty years.”

He wants to make a crack about how she wasn’t a spice runner when she was three years old, but he knew her mom and he remembers Zorii telling him, once upon a time, _it’s in my blood_ so he can tell that won’t win her over. “Can I practice my speech on you, though?”

“What speech?”

“About how the way you’ve lived doesn’t have to be your definitive way of life. It doesn’t have to define you if you want change.”

She visibly swallows and looks away. “It’s not bad. Brief and to the point but touching. Your earnestness helps sell it.”

He won’t push her, not when neither of them is at the top of their game. “Whatever you decide, I’m glad you’re here right now. I’m glad you’re—” He tests the word _okay_ but settles for, “alive.” It’s not exactly settling. It’s all they need to carry forward.

She nods but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge him. After a moment, she says, “want me to take us up for a bit?”

“Aren’t you tired?” He’s tempted to ask her to let him pilot them. She _might_ agree but he is tired. Not tired enough to silence the panic at the idea of being more or less grounded in the near future. Grounded under the weight of new responsibilities.

She shakes her head. “I’m restless,” she says moving into the pilot seat.

“Okay, but I might fall asleep on you.”

“Well, there’s no point to it if you’re not gonna be awake to admire and be awed by my superior piloting skills.”

“Wait, superior compared to whose?”

She grins, easy, already familiar. “Sleep, you could use it. I’ll fly you safe and true.”

The light from outside reflects on her eyes, catches on her hair, on her fingers over the controls. He closes his eyes and breathes.


End file.
